a look, a look
by Unfortunate Fates
Summary: Companion to a yet un-published Quick piece.  What Quick could have looked like in season 3.  A dive into Quinn's head.  Told in moments.


A/N: Written with(?) a friend. Rather, we both wrote on a random girl with the same storyline, sort of. My girl just ended up looking a lot like Quinn Fabray.

...

Lying on the grass, side by side. Dark sky, dark clouds, raindrops falling fatly and hitting their faces with solid smacks. She laughs up at the world, catching sweet water between her teeth, and he laughs with her. "This weather is the best," she breathes, still giggling, and she can feel his nod.

"It's perfect," he proclaims, stretching his arms out broadly as if he could encompass the entire universe if he just tried hard enough. He looks ridiculous. She can't find it in her to tell him so.

This moment is fleeting, she knows. They haven't been this happy in a long time. She wants to let it fill her, wants to let it overflow and spill into a wonderful kind of chaos, but she can't find a way out of these walls she built around herself, layers of lies and false promises and secret dreams she knows will never come true. He grins broadly, standing and bracing himself against the cold. She stands with him, and he twirls her, and she giggles like a schoolgirl, but it doesn't feel like reality anymore. She feels detached, like she's floating, like she doesn't deserve this and maybe he doesn't, either.

When she looks back months later, she'll be able to pinpoint this as the exact moment he broke her heart.

…

He calls her that night, voice bright and honest and all the more thrilling for it. She's never felt this way, not really, and if you look at all the boyfriends she's had before him it won't be difficult to see the difference. Where she's fierce but terrified, he's brave and open and totally unafraid to speak his mind. He's the only one who was never scared of her, and she can't decide if she loves him for it or if she hates him.

"Thank you," she finally says, "for today. It was amazing." Her words are slow and careful, the way she was taught. _Enunciate, darling, and be clear. No one could ever love a girl that mumbles._

"It was freaking incredible. I think you're it for me, I really do." And it all comes out in a rush, and it's so unexpected, and her mind is whirling a million miles a minute because did he just say what she thinks he said? An image comes to mind, unbidden, of her wedding box, the one tucked under bed where no one will look. Scraps of lace, scenic postcards, tasteful yet quietly tacky bridesmaid dresses. The way he'd look in a suit, the way she'd smile, the way the aisle would be littered with petals.

"You can't just throw things like that around," she chastises, heart pounding pounding pounding in her ears. "I had a great time. I know there's…something," she hedges, "but does it have to be so much so soon?"

"Chillax," he drawls, "I'm just calling it like it is. If you think that'll mess things up, I'll stop, okay? It's just, I've never actually felt like this before." She starts physically at that, breath coming shallow. "I want it to be real, you know? Like it won't just break in half like every other relationship I've ever been in."

"I know," she whispers, peace finally settling again. She does know.

…

"I'm sick of this!" she cries, voice ringing harshly. Her steps crack across the floor like pops of gunfire, and she's about ready to tear out every last strand of golden hair by the root. "I'm sick of being judged, and people being hateful, and-and-" she's horrified to find herself choking up. She's supposed to be stronger than this. While everyone else was growing up and changing and finding who they wanted to be, she'd clung to this persona; maybe loud and manipulative and headstrong aren't the most favorable attributes, but they're better than terrified and self-conscious any day.

"Hey," he says, voice uncharacteristically soft, "it's fine."

"It's not," she argues, "People hate me. Everyone. And it sucks, okay? I'm tired of it." Her tone is too sharp, and she's waving her arms, and objectively she must look crazy, but she's beyond all of this. Half the hall must be turned their way. He either doesn't notice or he doesn't care.

"I get it," he tries, voice tired.

"You don't!"

"You're not letting me help you."

"I don't need your help!"

It's silent then, and she's breathing heavily and standing her ground, because she won't let them take her pride, too. Not after today. Her hair is tied into a tight ponytail the way it always is when she's stressed, and she takes a moment to shut her eyes. Deep breath. Opens them again to find him watching her with a ghost of a smirk traced across his lips, and she wants to chew him out so badly he starts to cry. She doesn't, of course.

"Listen," he begins softly, testing her out, "people are idiots. That's a fact. I'm an idiot, you're an idiot, and everyone in this entire school is an idiot. That doesn't make what they're doing or saying, or whatever's going on, any better. But it means that they're, well, idiots. So none of it should matter, anyways."

She cracks a smile at that, though it's a little bit shaky. "Did you just call me an idiot?"

"Maybe," he replies easily. The attention seems to be off of them, finally, and she flushes a little bit at her outburst. "Probably because you are one."

She gapes.

"I'm a bigger one, of course, and so is every other screw-up in this world. But you don't get some 'get out of jail free' card just 'cause you're pretty. Not fair."

She dissolves into laughter at that, and lets him walk her to her next class. As they amble along, well before the bell is set to ring, she thinks of simpler times, when the sun was bright and the grass was green and the sky was all too blue. He helped her find herself, then, and he's helping her again. He brings out the best in her and he brings out the worst. Their relationship is unstable, dangerous, volatile, and she can't help but get hurt every time she sees that heartbreaking half-smile. It's crooked and one side of his lips always slips higher than the other; when it finally falls from his face, so does she, and the landing always jolts her far more than it should.

No, they won't last. But maybe they were never supposed to.

...

**Review?**


End file.
